It shocked him when, one day later, Loretta was back again, this time with Matthew. Loretta let Matthew take things from here, though he couldn't figure out why. He just chalked it up to personal preference.

"Good morning," Matthew said, shaking his hand, "I take it you're the new Visitor to Earth?"

"Yes, and you are?" he feigned ignorance.

"Matthew Bauer, but please, just call me Matthew. May I get your name as well?"

"Dei Grrata. With an E. I. not an A. Y. Mrs. Hardie keeps calling me Day and I can tell the difference."

Behind him, the woman in question laughed.

Matthew also seemed to lose some of his tension at Dei's relaxed attitude and got right down to business, taking a seat on one of the couches in his parent's living room. "Okay, from what I've heard, you're willing to heal Oscar, Mr. Hardie, in exchange for a place to stay in the brief time you will be on Earth. May I ask how you intend to do so?"

"Of course. From what I see of your world's physics, it has the unique property of making it difficult to expel affinitied mana, which is only able to exist in living beings. I believe Mr. Hardie suffers from a build-up of Wrath mana, so I simply intend to absorb that mana into my own storage then suppress it."

"And you do not believe this will cause you to go berserk, as the man has?"

"No, my mana storage will be able to handle it easily. Frankly, I am surprised he does not hold a mana storage in the first place. That seems like something everyone on Earth would form rather quickly."

"The idea of spells that suppress the effects of mana are known to us, but wildly rare and impossible to create for most. This is because categories- er, affinities to use your word for it, will not suppress themselves. In order to create a mana storage, a person must be born with two affinities in direct opposition to one another, and willing to suppress each other."

Dei's brow scrunched, "That… seems weird. Where I'm from, mana storages are incredibly common, and I'm sure most do not have oppositional affinities… but, ah! I get it. Your world does not have MP, a neutral source of mana. Without neutral mana, the body cannot create a neutral mana storage. That makes more sense."

From Matthews earpiece, Dei heard a very faint voice say "Ask him if MP is similar to Edit energy."

Without missing a beat, Matthew asked "Are you aware of the Edit reality being?"

"For the sake of honesty I'd like to say that I can hear your communication device. To answer you, no I've never heard of such a being, I only just began my journey across the multiverse. Earth is the very first foreign planet I've visited, could you enlighten me as to what the reality being Edit is?"

Without seeming put off by Dei's ability to hear his earpiece, Matthew said "It is one of the reality beings non-native to Earth, one that holds no part in our laws of physics. Its function is similar to what you describe, and we were wondering if you factually knew it to be the same kind of energy."

"It's not impossible. Reality beings in my section of the multiverse are supposedly all equally balanced from what I understand, a result of the System from which I hail. Since I interact with all the potential laws of reality, Edit has to be one of them."

"System you say? Would you mind clarifying if that is a unit of distance measurement, device, or law?"

* * *

A lengthy interview later, and they finally circled back to what Dei was most interested in.

"I see, so you intend to finish your journey in two months. That's quite a short timeframe to find what most would consider multiple consecutive groundbreaking revelations," Matthew told him with a chuckle.

"True, I just don't have the time to waste so… when can we go see this facility?"

"Now," the voice in the earpiece responded, and Dei lit up.

"As you've heard from my boss, now."

Actually getting out of the house was a lengthy process, because the rest of his family wanted to come too. They all wanted to see Oscar the moment it was possible, but Matthew insisted it would be for the best if they met him later and the man had a chance to process everything before getting overwhelmed by his family.

Dei wasn't an idiot, this simply confirmed that they'd try and capture him when he was in their facility and they didn't want civilians on site.

* * *

On the way there, Matthew started up a conversation while they were in the car, going to a nearby military base.

"Truthfully Dei, there was a second thing we wanted to discuss with you. Where we're going, Oscar isn't the only person who's lost his mind. Across the U.S. there are three such facilities. We were wondering if there was anything you might want from us that would convince you to go to all three. We have certain devices and weapons that would surely serve you well in the long run."

'Yea, there's no way I'm trusting anything the government would give me. It will be 100% sabotaged or to their benefit in some way.'

He hadn't proposed the idea of helping others in these facilities because if he had, they would've absolutely tried to get something out of the deal. Now that it was their idea though, he was more than happy to make it an equal exchange if it meant he wouldn't take any of their "Gifts."

"Actually, I'll do that without payment. A secondary part of my research is to see whether affinities differ by universe, as I heard from my own that some would occasionally appear or disappear over the course of several millennia. It won't be useful to me as I am unable to utilize affinities I don't have once my storage suppresses them," Dei lied, "but a simple curiosity."

"For… free? And what will you do with them? Surely you don't intend to keep these useless mana types forever?"

"Of course not, I am going to expel them the moment I encounter a universe where I can. I understand that this is not necessarily an option for you, but I don't think it will take too long."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Dei heard a quiet agreement from the earpiece and shrugged, knowing his schedule was set. He'd help his dad, then move on to all the rest of the poor soldiers that'd lost their mind.

The rest of the ride was spent in quiet as an issue made itself known to Dei: His Soul attunement acting up. He was socializing with people he didn't trust for too long. It was alleviated partially by the fact that he was talking more in a professional sense than actually talking with them, but the conversation was partially casual. Enough to set it off.

Still, this helped Dei learn that when he was on a job or talking to someone professionally, Soul would not mind as much.

* * *

He was soon on a private jet lacking windows. At the speeds he sensed it traveling, Dei was pretty sure he would have crossed the entire US in an hour, yet it took them two to reach their destination, which gave him time to rest his soul and get back into the mindset of being forced to talk to people.

The twists and turns he felt through the air told him that they were trying to throw off his sense of direction, perhaps to obscure the exact location of where he was being taken. That didn't really matter to him though. If he knew of a location, he could teleport to it. This, of course, wasn't something he'd tell them, but internally it was humorous to him.

When they finally arrived at their location and he was let out of the aircraft, he wasn't even able to discern the time of day where he was as he was in a fully enclosed hanger with no windows.

Suspect of traps even now, he decided to do something he hadn't in a long while- release a Soul Pulse. He was not careless though, as the pulse was known to be painful to System-enhanced beings. For an average mortal, he was sure it could go as far as causing genuine damage.

That in mind, there wasn't exactly a lower limit to how weak it could go, it just became obscure at some point. Without different affinities in the air to dilute the mana though, Dei was sure the pulse would be able to travel much further despite its lack of power.

So it was that he used the gentlest touch he possibly could, sending out the faintest of his Echo mana from his Racial ability.

Things went surprisingly smoothly, with none of the people around him even noticing what happened. The only symptom of his magic was the lights in the hanger flickering, causing a few of the soldiers around him to look up.

The sensory response was as flush as he believed it would be, and Dei was granted a mental map of the entire facility. Hallways leading to hundreds of cells were spaced out everywhere. Within many of these cells, Dei sensed the hurting souls of more than two hundred and fifty people. One, in particular, stood out to him as a flaring beacon of magic- vastly more overwhelmed than the others.

And it was dying.

The person, whoever they were, had reached the ending stages of soul-strain and could collapse at any moment.

As he made this revelation though, every earpiece around him sputtered to life "Be advised, target has cast a wide ranged Luciferian-category spell."

Matthew whipped around and opened his mouth, but Dei spoke first. "Yes, as I told you, I'm a half-spirit. That spell is how I see the world most of the time, and I've cast it now to get a look at all the souls. Ask later, one of your patients is about to die. I will lead, you unlock the doors in my way or I will blow through them."

Striding off, he heard Matthew grunt in displeasure, but quickly followed. When he came upon the first door, Matthew ran ahead and held his keycard to the reader, turning the light green as Dei opened it.

Without any need for directions, Dei traveled through the maze of a facility with a surety that he could tell unnerved his escort. The ease with which he could punch through all their obscuration attempts seemed to make them reevaluate a few things.

After the third door, Dei noticed every subsequent one was already unlocked, likely by the remote controller he saw watching the camera's.

As fast as he needed to be, Dei arrived at the cell in question, hearing loud voices and alarms from within. Heedless of anything else, He opened the door and immediately made his way to the patient in question.

The closer he got, the more he felt a bone-deep ache emanate from his Meditation spell, reserving a part of his mind to record the phenomena while the rest of him quickly reached out to the man thrashing on the table. There were two militarily-dressed men holding the patient down, while a doctor in scrubs frantically cast a spell.

Dei pushed past the woman, laying a hand on the panicked man's chest and using Connection to take control of the fraying energy he felt within. He felt a…

'Trickle of mana?'

He assumed he'd be blasted with thousands of mana, but he could sense a bit more than seventy points of mana spread out within the man. Still, he dutifully withdrew them.

Each point of mana resisted with the might of a dragon, desperately clawing to stay within the man. As the first point left his body, the man abruptly stopped thrashing, going limp and immediately a stream of unintelligible babble left his mouth.

The moment that first point entered Dei's body, Cycle of Sealing crashed down upon it, locking it away. For the half-second he had it within him though, Dei sensed a whisper at the edge of his mind- not one of madness, but one of truth.

The singular point of mana promised a truth he could not deny. He instinctively knew this mana could not lie, but it was something man should never be able to touch.

Its truth was too grand, the mortal mind unable to understand it.

'It's like Void. there is something within this mana that holds power, but to look upon its true form will only lead to a broken mind for the unprepared.'

Piece by piece though, he crushed its truths into a ball and locked them away. The man's rapid-fire voice became more coherent as Dei worked.

"Arrival-of-kind-one-marks-the-end-of-pain-yet-kind-one-frees-the-endless-the-endless-will-dissapear-will-work-with-never-one-to-escape-yet-savior-will-interfere-yet-savior-will-die-yet-savior-will-succeed-yet-savior-"

The halfway point seemed to sway something, and his eyes locked onto something, going wide.

The man's arm snapped up, grabbing one of the soldiers who were holding him down.

"SURVIVE!" he screamed, the word warbling on his tongue.

Immediately, the other half of this mana type disappeared without a trace. Gone.

The man passed out.

'Fuck, mana points dont disappear in this world. He had to have passed it on.'

Not wasting a moment, Dei broke his link to the patient and grabbed the soldier who'd been grabbed, scanning him for mana. Just as Dei thought he would find, the man had the exact thirty two missing points of mana within him. The issue?

Every single one was inert.

The energy, the truths within the mana types were gone. Expended on some spell Dei hadn't seen. Still, he took the now Null mana and sealed it away with the rest.

Without his struggle, the room was eerily quiet.

"...Sir?" the soldier Dei still held said questioningly.

"Hold still, I'm seeing if I can prevent whatever he did to you."

He dropped into a serious expression and nobody interrupted Dei working, but try as he might, Dei couldn't spot anything out of place on the man. Nothing was wrong with him, nothing was unhealthy, but Dei refused to believe that thirty two points of the most potent and mysterious mana type he'd ever encountered did nothing.

As the minutes passed though, Dei was forced to admit he was unequipped to interfere with the results of the spell. Sighing, he released the man and shook his head.

"Sorry kid, I've got no idea what happened. I'll see if I can figure something out from the mana I took from him."

The soldier closed his eyes, simply nodding. He seemed to have already accepted his death had come.

Turning back to Matthew standing in the doorway, Dei gestured to the unconscious patient and said "Mind if we put off curing Oscar for a moment? I need all the information you have on his mana type."

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